Every time I visit my parents, they're like "So when's the date for YOUR wedding?" And I answer "Yesterday, you weren't invited."

🚨 A few months ago, a paper published in Science reported that “LLM adoption is associated with a large increase in researchers’ scientific output.” In a comment released today, we show that the reported effects are driven by a methodological issue in the empirical design. arxiv.org/abs/2605.17979

New short blogpost! I wrote a round up of cancer research news from ASCO2026: - Daraxonrasib, the breakthrough pancreatic cancer drug - Big 7-year results of lorlatinib for ALK+ lung cancers – Talazoparib, a prostate cancer drug that cut the risk of progression by half and much more. Read here:

Me reading the abstract: Well, 'coding error' is a bit strong, isn't it, they just disagreed on some variable coding. Me getting to p. 3: Oh, OOOHHH, OH NO!!!!

New short blogpost! I wrote a round up of cancer research news from ASCO2026: - Daraxonrasib, the breakthrough pancreatic cancer drug - Big 7-year results of lorlatinib for ALK+ lung cancers – Talazoparib, a prostate cancer drug that cut the risk of progression by half and much more. Read here:

Remember that recent paper claiming to show that "ideological bias" determined the results obtained by immigration policy research teams? A careful, open-code reanalysis by @kauspurg.bsky.social & Josef Brüderl finds that the result arises from a coding error. —> doi.org/10.31222/osf...

I haven't had much of a biographical interview before, so it was new to talk to Amit Varma about how I got to doing what I do. We talk about science, data, and medical progress. And why, despite the messiness of our world, I'm hopeful about what's possible. Listen wherever you get your podcasts!

German fairy tales be like

I just found myself.

We take it for granted today that DNA is the genetic code of life, but until the 1940s most scientists thought genes were made of protein! In a new piece, @kevinsblake.bsky.social tells the story of how scientists discovered that DNA is the code of life.

Guys, how do you invent a vaccine? Or even wilder, how do you invent a vaccine during your PhD?! In a new episode of Hard Drugs, we talked to someone who did just that: @kat-a-collins.bsky.social! Plus: • Why did the first malaria vaccine take so long? • Could we make better vaccines today?

Very nice episode but feeling personally attacked by Saloni's closing remarks: "Some PhDs are just better than others. And some fields are better than others, too." 😭

Please appreciate our YouTube thumbnail 🙏

Guys, how do you invent a vaccine? Or even wilder, how do you invent a vaccine during your PhD?! In a new episode of Hard Drugs, we talked to someone who did just that: @kat-a-collins.bsky.social! Plus: • Why did the first malaria vaccine take so long? • Could we make better vaccines today?

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

This is so cool. This atlas has Lexis plots on how various things have changed over time in different age groups – mortality rates, fertility rates, number of parents and siblings. And you can reach out to Jonas to add your own plots too. I'd like to see Lexis plots for absolutely everything.

demoscapes.org is a visual atlas of demographic surfaces hosted at @mpidr.bsky.social. It is also my passion project growing out of my 2016 human mortality database explorer. Did you publish something containing Lexis surfaces? Consider reaching out and having your work featured on the site.

New blog post! Let's say an effect you are interested in varies between countries and you want to explain some of that cross-cultural variation. What could possibly go wrong? www.the100.ci/2026/05/20/f...

‘Probably’ is often pronounced /probly/, losing the syllable ‘ba’. This is called haplology. Some people have an issue with that, but what they don’t know is that ‘probably’ is the result of haplology too: in Middle English, it was ‘probablely’. Click my new graphic for more cases of haplology:

I’ve been trying to understand what we know and don’t know so far about the concerning Ebola outbreak in DRC. Still lots of uncertainty at the moment but here‘s what I have been able to find out so far. Story is here (thread coming later): www.science.org/content/arti...

Want to learn infographic design? Our new data visualization specialist, Manuel Bortoletti, does fantastic diagrams, geospatial visualizations and graphs. He's teaching a two-week course in June in New York. I'd highly recommend it. Details here: coopertype.org/events/advan...

Scoop: There has been a massive shakeup at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Eight of the top ten officials have now been pushed out since President Donald Trump took office. In @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Today I looked up what a breast lift meant because I didn't know and was briefly imagining an elevator

Opossum Magnum.

Update on CDC's hantavirus response - it's worth the read because, well, it's a mess. A few things: 1️⃣ The US doesn't actually have a validated PCR test for Andes virus 2️⃣ "Mildly positive" was due to 2 conflicting tests. That's called "inconclusive" 3️⃣ Poor coordination www.cdc.gov/media/releas...

I caved and got a neck pillow for a flight and it actually helped. This is so sad - I'm going to become a neck pillow person

Pleased to report @josephpolitano.bsky.social is just as fun and charming in real life! 11/10 would recommend hanging out

Most jarring thing on Celebrity Traitors is when they spell people's names wrong while voting them out at the discussion table and no one corrects them.

We had a weekly multiple choice pub quiz at work about pop music and I'm pleased to share that I scored a massive 1/10.

Fascinating to learn that actuaries are the profession with the lowest divorce rate. I'd like to imagine it's because they're spreadsheeting to decide who to marry and whether to get divorced.

Substack shows me my subscribers by their activity on my substack (how many times they click links, open posts, etc.), so I wanted to see who the most active reader was… and the answer was me. I am the most active reader of my substack.

Write for us! We’re looking for people to write many more pieces for us at Works in Progress – including on the story behind superglue, why there’s no syphilis vaccine, how gas turbines became efficient, and many more in this post. If you or someone you know would be interested, please pitch us :)

I rarely go to music concerts but I saw one of my favourite artists - Rationale - yesterday! So good! Much better than the sitting at home on the couch version!

Important data point here: “A sharp fall in Labour's performance is accompanied more often by an above average Green performance than it is by a strong Reform performance”. The Greens have already hurt Labour even before any direct gains.

A student from the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences Cameroon reached out to me -- he's writing his thesis on estimating the causal effect of insecticide-treated net use on malaria infections & has nobody in his immediate network who could provide a quick sanity check on his methodology.>

Each month, @nikomccarty.bsky.social and I review big news in biotech and medicine. This time: • The first-approved gene therapy for congenital deafness. • Scientists have recreated venom with organoids to test and develop antivenoms in the future. • Does hair loss treatment actually work now?

economists ca. 2027, probably

Oh wow: only TWO of the 180 "major land use reforms" identified in the Casey study were real.

Oh, so you're cycling in the Tour de France? You mean - *picks up French to English translation book* - The French Tower?

I was on the Infinite Loops podcast! ➿ We talked about global health, medical innovation, bottlenecks to medical progress, science journalism, and why I started writing! Spotify open.spotify.com/episode/2myI... Apple podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s... YouTube youtu.be/mcJDfFgOV_s?...

You ever try the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes test' and wonder, how is that any of them?!

How do people publish blogposts that are entirely AI written? It's horrible as a reader for everything to be written in the same style. There's only so many times I can read 'Not X but Y', overwrought metaphors, and sentences that go on—and then continue, before I want to gouge my eyes out.

So far, AI is having limited effects on employment. 95% of AI-using companies report that AI isn't changing their headcount, with equally small shares reporting AI-driven increases and decreases.

I forgot to share earlier, but I wrote a round up of news in biology, with @nikomccarty.bsky.social. - Organ transplant recovery has surged - Semaglutide doesn't slow Alzheimer's - A transformative new pancreatic cancer drug - Weight loss drugs that preserve muscle and more! Read it here:

Happy to share a new preprint, where we studied the expected outcomes of polygenic embryo screening in real-world IVF patients. Key conclusion: gains are very small for most infertility patients, with risk reductions under 5%. 🧵1/12 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

There’s a famous Saloni who has named her clothing stores after herself. Maybe I should go shop there.

Good news everyone 🥳 Our (w @vincentab.bsky.social) primer on models as prediction machines (with the marginaleffects package) is finally officially published!> journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

1/ "Silicon samples" are becoming more and more common in research and polling. One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want. The updated version of this preprint is now online! THREAD🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2509.13397

1. The paper with the implausibly large effects of Omega-3 fatty acids on mental health was now retracted. A little thread on the process where @ianhussey.mmmdata.io and I was involved. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Next up on my reading list!